


Sweet

by dancinguniverse



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Birthdays, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, food as flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: “If you’re here to tell me to buck up for the men, you can save it,” Nix snapped. “We’re alone, I can sulk if I want to.” “Actually,” Dick said, edging closer. “I was hoping I could cheer you up.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kunstvogel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunstvogel/gifts).



> For celestial-annihilation, who has been celebrating Lewis Nixon's birthday in high form.

Nix, like the rest of Easy, had come to accept the regular loss of his weekend pass. Which was, presumably, the point. It was hardly a punishment when you had almost forgotten what the freedom of two days to yourself even felt like. More likely, it was meant to harden them for the endless drudgery of the real war, much like prep school had been needlessly cruel in preparation for the intensity of college, and Yale had promised that the real world awaiting them would be worse.

Between Hitler and Hirohito, Yale had probably prophesied correctly, if only by dumb luck.

So Nix accepted the revoking of passes, the extra runs up the mountain, the gear checks even when it was spotless, because it was all a power play, and Nix had been playing that game since he was knee-high.  It was the one familiar thing about the army, and focusing on that left Nix too busy to worry about what came after Toccoa.

But this week wasn’t any week, and this week he’d made it to Friday, and he should have had two days—two entire days—that would have been his to spend in dance halls and bars and with any luck in close sleeping quarters with someone who didn’t smell like five months of army socks.

It wasn’t Bull’s fault, or Lipton’s, or Liebgott’s, or Popeye’s, or any of the guys who’d been docked, but then, it never was. It didn’t mean Nix wanted to look at any of them for the rest of the day. Nix had half a mind to put something poisonous in Sobel’s bed. They had venomous snakes in Georgia, right?

He hurled his helmet into his footlocker and turned to find Dick watching him, his mouth twisted sympathetically.

“If you’re here to tell me to buck up for the men, you can save it,” Nix snapped. “We’re alone, I can sulk if I want to.”

“Actually,” Dick said, edging closer. “I was hoping I could cheer you up.”

Nix let himself collapse onto his bed, the springs shrieking in protest. “Yeah?” He wasn’t in a charitable mood, and while Dick was rapidly becoming the sole bright spot in the whole of the paratroops, Nix had been planning to forget the army existed at all for a few hours.

Dick settled himself at the foot of the bed, and revealed a spoon and glass dish—in itself a surprise—with something amorphous and alarmingly pink inside. “What is that?” Nix asked, unswayed.

Dick shrugged, his gift still outstretched, and Nix reached out despite his misgivings. “One of the guys on the basketball team’s in charge of food at HQ and said Sink was having some fancy to-do tonight, so I asked him if he might sneak me a dessert dish. I figured you deserved something nice for your birthday before you headed out.” Nix’s eyebrows shot up, mostly at the fact that Dick had remembered such a fact. Dick didn’t notice, eying the dish ruefully. “And I guess now you need it even more.”

Nix dug the spoon in, quashing down a dawning hope until he placed it in his mouth and closed his eyes. “Oh my God,” he mumbled, after he’d swallowed, savoring the whole bite. “We’re eating creamed beef three mornings a week and they’ve got raspberry mousse?”

“I think it’s a special occasion for them, too,” Dick allowed, but he was smiling, clearly pleased.

Nix filled his mouth again. It wasn’t, perhaps, the best mousse he’d ever had, but after months of army chow he wasn’t going to waste time criticizing anything at least making an effort toward being real food. He jabbed the spoon in Dick’s direction. “You’ve gotta try some.”

Dick shook his head. “It’s yours. And there’s only one spoon.”

Nix rolled his eyes. “I puked on your boots last week when we ran Currahee in the middle of breakfast. I think we can share a spoon.”

Dick made a face at him. “That’s disgusting, Lewis.” Nix wasn’t sure if it was his full name or the way Dick scooted up the bed to take his own spoonful anyway, but he realized he wasn’t sore over the pass anymore.

Dick leaned back against the wall so their shoulders pressed together, and took his time working through his taste. “That’s good,” he finally pronounced, and Nix grinned, taking the spoon back with a victorious air.

“Sorry about your pass,” Dick offered, when Nix’s mouth was full again. He shook his head in mute warning, and Dick continued. “We’ll probably run the mountain tonight too.”

“Shh,” Nix hushed him, and waved another spoonful of the rapidly diminishing mousse in his face. “We’re celebrating here.”

Dick laughed and, in a move that put a pleased flip somewhere in the base of Nix’s stomach, leaned forward to close his teeth on the spoon still in Nix’s hand. “Sorry,” he said with his mouth full, pulling back. “I forgot. Happy birthday, Lew.”

“Thank you,” Nix said with dignity, and chased the last spoonful for his own gain, Dick’s hip warm against his own.


End file.
